Clicking My Heels - There's No Place Like Home

Has anyone read "Life of Pi" by Yann Martel? I checked IMDB to verify a rumor I heard that M. Knight Shymalan secured the rights to this book and wrote the screenplay - I'm interested.

Here's a cool excerpt from "Life of Pi..."

"What is the meaning of freedom in such a context? Animals in the wild are, in practice, free neither in space nor in time, nor in their personal relations. In theory - that is, as a simple physical possibility - an animal could pick up and go, flaunting all the social conventions and boundaries proper to its species. But such an event is less likely to happen than for a member of our own species - say a shopkeeper with all the usual ties - to family, to friends, to society - to drop everything and walk away from his life with only the spare change in his pockets and the clothes on his frame. If a man, boldest and most intelligent of creatures, won't wander from place to place, a stranger to all, beholden to none, why would an animal, which is by temperament far more conservative? ... There is no more happenstance, no more "freedom," involved in the whereabouts of a lizard or a bear or a deer than in the location of a knight on a chessboard. Both speak of pattern and purpose. In the wild, animals stick to the same paths for the same pressing reasons, season after season....

But let me pursue for a moment only one aspect of the question.

If you went to a home, kicked down the front door, chased the people who lived there out into the street and said, "Go! You are free! Free as a bird! Go! Go!" - do you think they would shout and dance for joy? they woludn't. Birds are not free. The people you've just evicted would sputter, "With what right do you throw us out? This is our home. We own it. We have lived here for years. We're calling the police, you scoundrel."

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I've lived in the same place since 1994 - the same region anyway... I never thought I'd root here. I had no intention of staying. I thought my first job in the area would last just a few years.... It lasted many more than it should have. After I left there, I tried to fly the coop. Honest, I thought DC would be a wonderful place to live. I thought life in NYC would have a shelf life, but I could probably survive a few years there... I even pondered Philadelphia (a city I don't have a great affection for - although it's growing on me). For the right job, I might even experiment with Boston or Chi-town...

But I never left. When offered a poor paying job with a less than living wage in Virginia, I actually thought about taking it. I figured I could always freelance and survive and within a year or two move onto bigger I found new jobs right here. I made my friends right here. I fell in love here (I can remember a time when this occurred several times a day)

It seems that in my make-believe fantasy Johari window quadrant labeled "unknown bird flipped to everyone," I believe I'm a transient, world traveler, with interesting stories to tell - Well... In the words of the immortal Howard Hill, "I got my foot caught in the door."

I don't think I'm going anywhere - I think I've found my territory - and I doubt I'm moving. Despite all the things going on at work that I don't always like - despite all the people I don't understand - and despite my desire to see the world and make an impact everywhere I go...

So I guess my band's world tour consists of Eastern PA, New York and New Jersey...